


like that

by OedipusOctopus



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship(?), M/M, Misunderstandings, but asahi doesn't realize it, extremely considerate and sappy noya, forehead kisses(!!!), gray ace asahi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OedipusOctopus/pseuds/OedipusOctopus
Summary: They started rooming together in college because they both hated the dorms. Sure, they hold hands and cuddle on the couch when they binge a murderdoc. And, yeah, sometimes they sleep in the same bed when Noya crawls into Asahi's room in the middle of the night with some utterance of "I'm cold" or "Can't sleep." But that doesn't mean they're dating....Right?
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 18
Kudos: 117





	like that

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the fluff by brainrot has produced! i don't know if any of it makes sense but! it's words!
> 
> title from [like that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beaFli1mQ-4&ab_channel=StandAtlantic-Topic) by [stand atlantic](https://open.spotify.com/artist/1W2Fv4YUnjC8hx2qQd6fGh?si=vJTgEkv8RiaRVbNt-Nuo-Q)

“He’s so hot. It’s not fair.”

Keys click under Asahi’s fingers. “Oikawa?”

Suga flings himself face-first into Asahi’s lap, knocking his laptop onto the carpet with a soft thud. “Yes, Oikawa!”

Asahi sighs and reaches for his fallen laptop. Suga slaps his hand mid-quest, instead directing Asahi’s fingers to thread through his hair. He is nothing if not a humble servant, so Asahi obliges him, petting through his silver locks. “Would you be happy if he was less hot?”

Lips pursing into a pout, Suga looks up at Asahi through silver lashes. “Maybe.”

“You should just ask him out.” Asahi plucks his wine glass off the TV tray next to the couch. 

“If I wanted obtuse advice, I would’ve gone to Daichi’s,” Suga huffs. He juts his chin in the direction of the glass in Asahi’s hand. “Gimme a nip.” He sits up a little, motioning with a hand for Asahi to lift the glass to his lips. 

“You’re a grown adult. Get your own wine.” Asahi takes a small sip of the drink, bitter and full. Just the way he likes it. 

The pout on Suga’s mouth deepens. “It’s too far.”

Before he can give in and feed his friend wine because he has no spine, the front door flies open, hitting the bumper on the wall of the entryway with a muffled thud. A blur of denim and bleached bangs streaks across the living room and into the hallway. 

Suga looks up from Asahi’s lap with a puzzled look on his face. Asahi shrugs and takes another pull from his wine. 

“Ugh, I forgot my macro lens.” Noya walks out of his bedroom, fiddling with his camera bag in his hands. “This client very specifically requested one of those dumb water droplet shots. Can you believe I went to school for four years to take pictures of wet babies?”

“I can’t believe you made it through four years of college, honestly,” Suga says, chuckling. 

Noya sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry. “So mean. You used to be nice to me, y’know.” He zips up the bag in his hands and slings it over his shoulder. “Anyway, I’m headed out for real this time. Don’t get too crazy, you two.”

“I can’t speak for Asahi— you know how wild this one gets.” 

Eyes alight with mirth and twinkling with something Asahi hasn’t been able to name but finds himself entranced by all the same, Noya laughs and it’s loud, large, filling the whole room with a warmth that nestles into Asahi’s gut. “Yeah, the big guy can get rowdy. Keep an eye on him, yeah?” Noya winks down at Suga as he walks toward where the two are settled on the carpet in front of the couch. When he reaches them, he bends over at the waist and presses his lips into the crown of Asahi’s hair. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t miss me too much.” He lays another soft kiss on Asahi’s hairline before he fast-walks out the front door once more. 

At the sound of the door closing, Suga sighs and throws an arm over his eyes. “Ugh, how did you get so lucky? Here I am, in a pit of despair because I can’t get any, and my best friend is disgustingly in love.”

The glass in Asahi’s hand nearly tumbles to the floor as he splutters, “W-what? In l-love?” 

“Well, yeah?” Suga cocks his head. “You and Noya have been dating since forever. We’ve all been wondering when you two are going to finally get hitched. I keep telling Daichi you’re going to fly somewhere exotic and elope, but he insists you’re going to have a giant wedding with every person Noya has talked to ever.”

“D-dating?” Asahi’s throat squeezes painfully. “W-wedding?” All the air in his lungs expels from his body in a rush of breath as his chest constricts so tightly he thinks his ribs might crack under the pressure.

“Uh.” Suga sits up abruptly, tucking his feet under his knees. He rests a placating hand on Asahi’s shoulder. “Breathe, Asahi. Breathe with me. In-2-3-4, hold-2-3, out-2-3-4-5, yeah, just like that.”

It takes a few minutes of Suga’s hushed voice walking him through the motions of respiring, but eventually Asahi is able to gulp down enough oxygen to feel like a human again. 

Several beats pass in silence, the only sound between them is the rush of breath past Asahi’s lips. 

“Um,” Suga says, voice barely above a whisper. “So… what was that about?”

Asahi swallows around the lump in his throat. He can breathe, but there’s a thickness swelling in his stomach, a staccato pulsating in his veins that leaves his brain discombobulated. “Does everyone think Noya and I are dating?”

“That’s…” Suga trails off, struggling to find the words. “It’s easy to see the way you look at Noya and the way Noya looks at you and assume that you are.”

Oh. 

_Oh._

“And you two are always holding hands, or you have an arm around Noya’s shoulders, or he’s holding onto your waist, and you always talk about how Noya squirms in his sleep but you’ve gotten used to it, and he gives you forehead kisses all the time…”

_Oh no._

“...But obviously we’re all wrong in our assumptions.”

“I…” Asahi clenches his fists until he feels his fingernails dig crescents into his palms. “That’s just how Noya is. Affectionate.”

“Well, sure. But,” Suga’s hand slides down Asahi’s shoulder to squeeze his bicep softly, “he’s only like that with you, Asahi.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” Suga scoots closer and rests his head on Asahi’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, too.” 

It’s quiet again, only Asahi’s thoughts racing through his head to occupy him as they sit together on the floor, backs against the couch. 

He and Noya, dating. Together. In a relationship. Nishinoya and Asahi. Asahi and Noya. The thought sets his heart hammering against his ribcage, lights aflame his blood as it all rushes to the tips of his ears. He’s never thought about it, not really, because the thought of a relationship makes Asahi’s gut clench, makes him queasy. But being with Noya is easy, comfortable. 

Being with Noya feels like home. 

He hasn’t thought to change anything about their situation because he likes it, he likes where they are and what they do and how he feels when they’re together. 

It’s effortless, being around Noya. Asahi hasn’t thought anything in his life to be effortless, not until he and Noya fell into a rhythm of working together on the court. And when their teamwork morphed into sitting around the living room table, index cards strewn across the surface, quizzing each other for their exams, it was simple. When that turned into sliding past each other in the kitchen as they get ready for the workday, it was seamless. 

But Asahi has read books. He’s watched movies, seen TV shows. And they all depict relationships to be hard work, filled with effort and conscious dedication that Asahi can’t imagine exuding past all his inner insecurities and anxiety. He couldn’t picture pulling someone into his orbit, dragging them down into the mess that is his brain. 

No, why would he, when Noya is already there?

_Oh._

Noya is already there.

“I think…” Asahi starts, but his voice is quiet, shallow, weak. He clears his throat as he tries to figure out what the hell he’s trying to say. “I should talk to Noya.”

He can feel Suga nod against his shoulder. “Good idea.”

~~

The sound of the door banging open is like a gunshot, the way it rattles Asahi’s skeleton. 

“God, Asahi, that was the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen.” Noya kicks his shoes off at the door and practically flings himself on the couch next to Asahi. He tucks his feet under himself, pushing into Asahi’s personal space without so much as a hello. “You gotta see this.” He pulls his camera from the carrying case on his shoulder and presses a few buttons, tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrates. 

Heat blossoms across Asahi’s cheeks as Noya’s knee digs into his thigh, as Noya’s arm presses into his chest. Noya is warm, radiating a ridiculous amount of heat that isn’t helping the blush spreading across Asahi’s face. It’s normal, Noya crowding Asahi against the couch cushions like this, but it feels different, now. Now that Asahi thinks that they’ve maybe been dating without actually dating for years.

“Seriously, look!” Noya tilts the camera so Asahi can look at the screen. 

(Asahi thinks the baby is cute, in that pruney alien way that newborns are.)

But that’s not the point right now. No, he’s spent the last hour and a half after Suga left with a too-tight hug and a kiss to the cheek thinking, thinking, thinking. 

He can’t unsee all the things Suga pointed out. The casual touching, the physical affection— the forehead kisses Asahi bends at the knee to receive every morning, the sense of comfort that envelopes him when Noya crawls into his bed at 2am under the guise of not being able to sleep, the hands that wrap around his waist when he’s stirring curry at the stove, Noya’s foot hooked around his ankle when they’re wrapped up in a velour blanket watching the fifth episode in a row of some docuseries— he sees it, now, and needs to know what it means to Noya. 

Because it means everything to Asahi. 

Noya is thumbing over a button on the camera, scrolling through more pictures that Asahi is meant to be looking at, curled into Asahi’s side like this is where he belongs. 

(Asahi thinks that he might. That he does.)

And so, like the idiot he is, he blurts out ineloquently, without preamble, “Are we dating?”

Noya leans away from Asahi to look him in the eye, but keeps the rest of their bodies connected. “Uh, yeah?” His brows furrow, face twists with blatant confusion. 

Sweat breaks out in the palms of his hands. “S-since when?” 

Sighing, Noya flops against the back of the couch. “I don’t know exactly, but, like, probably since my first year of college.”

“ _What?”_

“I asked you out.”

“I can assure you that you didn’t.”

“I said ‘Let’s go out this weekend, there’s a poetry reading at your favourite bookstore,’ and you said yes. I held your hand. I wore a button up shirt! And we kept going out a million times after that.”

“B-but we don’t kiss or… anything else.”

Noya shrugs and his lips spread upward with a broad smile. “I thought you weren’t comfortable with the physical stuff, so I didn’t push.”

“You… wouldn’t mind not kissing? O-or having sex?”

Shaking his head firmly, Noya’s grin only grows wider. That twinkle is back, shining in the corner of his eye, and Asahi wishes he could pinpoint what it is. “Of course not. I want to be with you, you big goof. I don’t care about the other stuff.”

“You want to… be with me.”

Noya nods. “Absolutely. In whatever capacity you’ll let me.”

It’s so like Noya, to say so blatantly what he’s thinking. What he wants. He wears his heart on his sleeve, leaves it brazenly on display for anyone to observe, for anyone to _take._ If it were anyone else, Asahi would think it’s reckless, leaving your whole self open like a bleeding wound. But Nishinoya is fearless. He doesn’t let what could happen stop him from doing what he wants. He’s tenacious, but more than anything he knows himself so completely, so wholly, that he knows how to handle anything that could mess with that open, unguarded heart. Noya is his own guardian, through and through.

Asahi loves that about him. 

Asahi just might love… him.

And just like that, the words spill from his mouth like water, easy and laminar. “I love you.”

Noya’s smile grows tenfold, bright and brilliant and blazing. “I love you, too, you oblivious idiot.” Noya nudges his elbow against Asahi’s arm. “I thought that was pretty obvious, but I guess I’ll have to start spelling everything out for you, huh?”

He feels his face flush, both at Noya's brazen, blatant, casual reciprocation of the feelings Asahi had to pull like splinters from the depths of his jumbled-up brain and at the implication that Noya would tell him _again._

Noya leans over to tuck his head into the crook of Asahi’s neck. “Okay, but for real, look at this baby’s stupid face. So wrinkly, right?”

Just like that, Asahi’s chest feels full, his heartbeat steady and strong, his mind calm for once in his life, his soul at home. 

It’s just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope y'all enjoyed!!! kudos and comments never necessary but always appreciated!!! <3
> 
> come scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/OedipusOctopus)! i post fic updates and baby tweet fics and hcs there, too! :)
> 
> stay safe, stay angry, stay loud, babes! wear a fucking mask! vote if you can! [BLACK LIVES MATTER](https://blacklivesmatter.com/). ARREST AND FIRE THE COPS WHO MURDERED [BREONNA TAYLOR](https://www.standwithbre.com/#petition).


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